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Friday, April 20, 2007

Being Bad is Good

And what I mean by that is that I have thrown the diet out the window for the duration of my visit in Salt Lake City. On the positive side, we are getting by on two meals and one snack each day. On the negative side, one of the two meals is generally pig out time.

It's such a hassle to get yourself all set up at a work space in the library that you don't want to move once you are settled. By the time you have set up the laptop and gotten the wires all arranged and wound your security cable around two sets of table legs and through the handle of your briefcase, and dragged your files out and spread them around you, and draped your jacket on the back of the chair - well, believe me you think long and hard about whether you want to repack everything in the interest of lunch. You're allowed to leave your work area for an hour, but I have a hard time walking out of the library with my laptop sitting there unwatched. So we grab a quick 15 minute snack in the library's lunch room and resume our work until we can't ignore the hunger pains any longer.

Yesterday we took advantage of the hotel's shuttle service and went to a new place for us, the Market Street Grill. We indulged in seafood and margaritas. When we first visited Salt Lake City, it was hard to find a place to get a mixed drink. Now they can actually serve a pretty darned good margarita. I ignored my conscience and ate a plateful of fried shrimp and french fries. Umm, umm, good.

Today we decided we needed a play break, so we shut down research operations at 2 o'clock and went for a walkabout. Salt Lake City is in the process of reconstructing a big hunk of its downtown area and a lot of the places we used to prowl are no longer there. We did get to explore the Deseret Book Store, the LDS Museum Store and Edinburg Castle and eat at another new restaurant. Then we returned to the library for a few hours. Finally, we stopped for dessert and coffee before collapsing in our room.

Tomorrow I plan a long siege on the microfilm reader. Every time I come here I spend one day plowing through books and feeling frustrated. Then the second day I start with the microfilm and I remember what I enjoy the most - seeing the original records and finding my ancestors' names in ancient, spidery writing. I've already accumulated a few marriage records and wills and I expect to get a lot more tomorrow.

Tomorrow's main meal is planned for Cafe Martine, a little place we spotted on our walk this afternoon. It's French food, so I expect I will continue to be bad. But, then what's a vacation for anyway?